Meeting Minutes: Golfo made the motion to approve the minutes from February and March after two spelling changes were made. Tom seconded the motion. Passed unanimously.

Coalition Update

Healthy Livonia – This is a collaboration with St. Mary Mercy Livonia, Chamber of Commerce, Livonia City Council, the City of Livonia, the Livonia Rec Center and Livonia Public Schools. The mission is to “Energize a community-wide focus on healthy living in Livonia.” The three sections of Healthy Livonia: Fitness, Nutrition and Substance Abuse & Mental Health. Dave Spivey from St. Mary approached Karen about heading the committee regarding substance abuse & mental health.

Board of Directors meeting April 30th, 2018 6 – 8 PM. Kelly Younce has accepted an offer to become a board member and is awaiting board approval.

Branding update – Karen, Shari and Juliana met with Maria Gosur regarding the new website. We talked about what to update from the current website. Maria felt the website should tell our story and reflect the community. The new logo will be rolled out most likely in August 2018. Our new tagline is Educate. Communicate.

Updates – Old Business

March 7 – Scripps interview for Alcohol Awareness Week. Karen was interviewed at Channel 7 for a public service announcement. She was prepared for a really long interview, but they only asked a couple of questions.

Livonia Police had a drug disposal weekend March 10th and 11th. Ron Warra, our police liason, told us that not much was dropped off. The next one is in June.

March 13 – Run planning meeting. Adding to the Kids’ Fun Run, trying to encourage city team participation, we secured a free bounce house, volunteers are being recruited, the run is being marketed on run pages, Facebook, flyers posted at the Rec Center, Senior Center

March 14 – Schoolcraft Mocktail Party – Shari went and had a resource table. Attendance was great and we had a lot of students come by the table. We passed out packs of gum with our logo! We enjoy this event a lot.

March 20 – Karen spoke at an Addiction Awareness presentation, well attended by about 50 students.

March 22 – Karen also spoke on an Opioid Epidemic Panel at Schoolcraft with two professors and a nurse. Also about 50 students and other professionals.

Ongoing Planning

Addiction: What You Need to Know and What You Can Do is the series presented the first three Tuesdays of each month from 7 – 8:30 PM at St. Mary Mercy Livonia. Brian Spitsbergen is the facilitator (Karen fills in when he can’t be there.) This series has been advertised in the Livonia Observer, we have sent the information to hundreds of churches, therapists and psychologists, we are working to get it on the Livonia cable channel and Facebook. The flyer is included with your packet. Attendance has been down, so we are looking at different ways of marketing. We are also drafting a proposal for schools and courts…we are proposing that students who are suspended are required to attend our series and the courts to send people in trouble for drug related charges. The committee collaborating is Growth Works, LSOY and St. Mary Mercy Livonia.

Marijuana Awareness Campaign Committee – The purpose of the committee is to educate the community about marijuana so voters can make an informed decision at the polls in November if recreational marijuana is on the ballot. Wayne State has a survey about drug use that we will be able to use soon! It will be distributed via email and Facebook and we hope to use the results to discern what people think about marijuana to help us educate the public. April 23rd is the next Marijuana Committee Meeting 6:30 – 8:00.

Livonia Police organized Marijuana in Michigan: What You Need to Know. Karen and Shari attended at the library on April 4th. They received a thick booklet full of information and the speakers were very good; a woman from the DEA in Colorado, a prosecuting attorney from Lansing and a LARA official.

Run 2 Save Our Youth is set for Saturday, June 2nd. We have 10 Sponsors so far for a total of $2,200.00 so far! Run registration forms and sponsor forms are included in your packet.

4H Club is designing a substance abuse project with a Microsoft grant, so Karen is meeting with the director on April 13th to see how we can collaborate. She saw our website on one of our wristbands and called!

Vaping and E-Cigarettes

Vaping 101: What’s Important to Know, St. Joe Mercy Health System – LSOY are sponsoring two events: